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Meat In The Middle?

Since cooking up this blog I’ve dished up a selective range of topics for digital consumption, yet the issue of animal cruelty has never been served as the main course, but inspiration often comes from the strangest of places and while casually browsing my Facebook newsfeed I came across an image of…

Rebecca Francis.

Married for 19 years, mother of three biological children, five step children and the 2010 extreme huntress winner. The recreational pastime of Rebecca Francis had already been given mainstream attention by comedian Ricky Gervais, but as I don’t have a Twitter account I tend to miss out on what hot hashtags are trending at the time…

Mrs Francis is known for taking pictures with a range of her hunting kills including Alaskan brown bears, deer, elk, moose, mountain goats, buffalo, black bears not to mention hunting big game in Africa. Understandably, there has been a negative backlash against her, but the situation raises a few issues I would like to present to the court of public perception…

Perhaps it’s important to note I’ve never understood why anyone would want to hunt as a recreational pastime but I grew up within the concrete blocks of South London, where the closest thing I experienced to wildlife was the Columba Livia Domestica more commonly known as the “Pigeon”. Yet hunting, tracking and killing these annoying birds would bring me no personal sense of achievement. Perhaps if I had grown up in the wild open spaces of rural America, things would have been different?

3,721 people signed up to shut down Rebecca Francis’ website and yet I have to wonder how many of those who felt outraged were vegetarian or vegan; because only then does the feeling of outrage make logical sense. I use the term “logical” because I felt an instant, emotional punch to the gut, seeing a picture of Rebecca Francis lying down (and smiling!) alongside the dead bull giraffe she had killed…

But…

I had to step back and distance myself from my instinctual emotion because regardless of motive or intent the lives of innocent animals are taken every day. In the UK alone, something in the region of 2.6 million (56 billion if you live in the US) cattle per year are slaughtered for human consumption. So I have to wonder if the life of a cow, lamb, goat, pig or chicken is worth less than an elephant, zebra, gazelle, rhino or any animal species more exotic in nature?

Being warmly held in the loving arms of Caribbean culture, meant that well-cooked, succulent, seasoned meat dishes were ingrained in the culture, in fact, I’m pretty sure most of us came into the world with meat as a normal part of our cultural/social eating habits from the English Breakfast to the Christmas Dinner.

Free will and more information allows us to eliminate anything we choose from our diets. In good conscience, I can’t condemn Rebecca Francis for her kills, when the food choices I make also result in a loss of innocent animal life. I’m working on it…I stopped eating processed and red meats a while back and on account of my fiancé, I pretty much live as a pescatarian (although I think my official title is flexitarian?) because I only eat white meat on the occasional occasion. I have reduced my meat consumption considerably, yet I haven’t fully committed to an animal-free dietary lifestyle.

I also have to wonder why Steven Rinella (who does the same thing) doesn’t quite experience the same negative media backlash? Why aren’t we as outraged when fishermen hoist up a dead 380 kg (837 lb/59 stone) Bluefin Tuna as catch of the day? Why is it more palatable in our society for men to enjoy hunting as a pastime, yet we scorn women?

But I digress…

We know that hunting is a part of our collective legacy and there is good evidence to suggest that our primitive foremothers and father’s ability to hunt and consume meats lead to our evolutionary development as a species but Aretha Franklin and Michael McDonald were right; these are ever changing times…in a modern age we can sustain our lives whether we choose to eat meat or not.

Personally, I don’t care what you eat because I believe the biggest dietary threat to our species comes from refined sugar, but the outrage, insults, death threats and angry emoji’s will do nothing to impact on the lifestyle of Mrs Francis, who will continue to bask in the glory of her tactical kills. I do find it odd that anyone would want to take pictures with a dead animal carcass but calling Mrs Francis a c**t, b**ch or savage for her legal recreational choices will not change what she does, but we do have the power to change what we do.

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2 thoughts on “Meat In The Middle?”

I hate hunting, absolutely detest it. That said, I eat meat, chicken, fish. I used to be vegetarian and then stopped. I’ve so many food allergies and intolerances that if I stopped eating animal protein too, there’d be very little else I could eat… so then I’d die so that a cow or chicken could live. Part of me says “yes, that’s fair,” part of me says “I know which part of the food chain I’m in.” I don’t eat lamb anymore as, since we moved here, I see them often and cannot bear the idea of them being killed while so young just for us to eat… but of course instead I’m eating animals I’m not seeing daily… so I’m a hypocrite like many others.

I hope I wouldn’t be one of those to call that women bad names, but I suspect I’d have the same thoughts even if I didn’t vocalise or put it into words on screen. To my mind, there’s a difference between hunting for sport and hunting for food. If she ate what she killed, then I could at least see a point, otherwise, I can’t. As those animals are hunted, they are in a constant state of panic – I wouldn’t wish that on man or beast.

Where I live there are game birds that from time to time come to our garden for food – particularly pheasants and partridges – and I kind of start mourning for them part of the way through the year knowing that the only reason they are alive at all is because they have been bred to be killed for sport. They have a ‘safe’ season in which they are not allowed to be hunted or shot, but the rest of the time… well they don’t know what’s awaiting them.

Eventually I may have to become vegetarian again and take my chances with my health. I don’t know… I’ll see.

And with apologies, (and even though I’m again being hypocritical) eating fish is not being vegetarian. Watch some Koi sometime and see their intelligence.

Val, please don’t take any risks or make any dietary changes on account of this post! 😂😂😂

Even in nature animals kill animals for survival. They don’t hunt for fun, but as a necessary tool to live. I’ve watched enough wildlife documentaries to see that animals seem to kill enough to meet their needs.

I now eat chicken or fish with that in mind. I don’t eat it every day but enough to give my diet some range.

I hate to think of a gentle Giraffe being killed, how unfair is that! But I also hate to think of an excessive amount of animals being slaughtered. Truth be told I’m still in conflict because I haven’t fully committed to a vegetarian lifestyle.